Ic7 Max 3 Build Help

[emul8]

I have recently finished building my new rig and i am about to plug it in.
I have read the motherboard manual cover to cover there are lots of pages covering the bios but then at the end of the bios section it skips to installing various drivers and shows illustrations of windows XP ? Have i missed a page
were did the xp come from what do you install first and how
this is my first pc build
please can somebody help

[JimLad]

Put your XP cd in the drive, then go into bios and change First Boot Device to the CD-ROM. It will then boot off of the CD and you can install windows. When the install asks you to reboot do so but go into BIOS and change First Boot Device to the hard drive you installed Windows onto. Then you can complete the installation

[emul8]

THANKS VERY MUCH one more thing what do i do if i want to run the hard drives in SATA (striped) does the OS stay on one drive and does the cd driver hve to be installed

[JimLad]

Hmm I'm not sure. You dont have to install a CD-Driver I know that. I would imagine that the OS goes on one hard drive, but I cant be sure :S

[emul8]

Thanks for trying. It says in the book when you set up sata in stripe all data on the HDs is lost Hmmm

[turkster]

THANKS VERY MUCH one more thing what do i do if i want to run the hard drives in SATA (striped) does the OS stay on one drive and does the cd driver hve to be installed

Do you mean you are going to run a striped RAID(0) array. If this is the case you will have to make sure your RAID controller is enabled in Bios. And make sure it is set as bootable. You should then be presented with your RAID controller setup on next boot and you must set up your drives etc forRAID. Then when installing XP you must press F6 when prompted and install from (supplied floppy) you RAID drivers and then continue with installation.

Im not sure how the CD ROM drivers etc works when booting from XP CD but if this fails you can always download the XP setup floppies (6) from microsoft.

[emul8]

Thanks again. i will give it a go.I havent turned the PC on yet i dont want to untill i know what i am doing. I can not understand why the manual dosent show this part.

[emul8]

still not done it i would be pulling my hair out now if i had any
i have set up the raid volumes and given it a name that all seems ok
but when i exit it asks me to press F4 to enter the raid utility after hitting F4 it says
No device detected,Utility disabled!Press any key to continue...
after that nothing

[turkster]

When you say you set up the RAID volumes presumably the drives are recognised during that RAID setup but not on boot?

Are they completely blank drives no format etc?

[matt_hobson]

I got the Max3, and it came with a CD, and a floppy. The CD is for when win XP is installed. The floppy should contain all RAID and SATA drivers you will need,

does it check the A: drive when asking for the RAID utility? If so put the floppy in!

Matt

[emul8]

When you say you set up the RAID volumes presumably the drives are recognised during that RAID setup but not on boot?

Are they completely blank drives no format etc?

yes all three say normal in green letters

>raid 0/stripe 128kb/size 152.6gb/status normal/bootable yes
>maxtor/stripe port 0/size 76.3gb/status normal
>maxtor/stripe port 0/size 76.3gb/status normal

brand new drives and i think the raid 0 clears the drives

[emul8]

I got the Max3, and it came with a CD, and a floppy. The CD is for when win XP is installed. The floppy should contain all RAID and SATA drivers you will need,

does it check the A: drive when asking for the RAID utility? If so put the floppy in!

Matt

tried it , it tells me to remove the disc

[emul8]

it actual now wont boot from any drive

[turkster]

Hmmm troublesome. When you say it wont boot from any drive presumably you have set it back to attempt to boot from plain drive.

When you say it wont boot do you mean it wont boot into windows CDrom disk. Ie it wont boot from the RAID 0 array untill you have an OS on it. You need to set your bios to boot from CD rom or floppy first and RAID 0/HDD second. THis way when you boot you will be starting Windows setup. It is only in Windows setup the t you need to put in the RAID drivers floppy.

IF the CDrom does not work try the microsoft XP boot floppies (find them somewhre in Knowledge base articles)

[emul8]

sorted it at last
disabled the pci raid controler
In hindsight i can now see how simple the problem was and i should of realised!
The first program installed was 3d mark 2001 it scored 18100 not bad if i might say so
Thanks for all the help and advice cheers

[SMOOTH2_HEXUS]

I had the same problem with my DFI LAN party board. You have to set up the raid when you install windows XP. In the beginning of the installion windows will ask the question are you installing raid or SCSI. At that point it will tell you to hit one of the F Keys, I don't remember which one. You should have your floppy in the drive at this point as will. Follow the instruction on the screen and you should be ok.